Beth N. Russell's New York Times Editorial

There is no doubt that we have entered an age where the Western Press is growing increasingly hostile to China and things Chinese. History might show that the Washington Post 2006 article on China's baby-trafficking problems will be the turning point for favorable press coverage of China's international adoption program. As China becomes a stronger economic, political, and military competitor, the coverage will probably grow increasingly critical.

The New York Times apparently seeks to lead the way. A letter to the editor in Tuesday's edition from an adoptive mother of two Chinese children is merely the latest in misinformed people given a stage to promote their ignorant, and often illogical, experiences and ideas. Beth Nonte Russell is like many adoptive families who have been to China once or twice, visited an orphanage or two, and feel that those experiences can be translated into a country-wide paradigm (and a book contract to boot). Her essay is filled with intellectual "leaps". One of the most blatant is in the first paragraphs: Thee are thousands of orphanages in China, "most of them full of girls". Having visited two orphanages, on what does she base this assertion? She bolsters her assessment with some very questionable math, concluding that if 10% (apparently taken from thin air) of China's 10 million apparently missing children end up in the orphanages, then there must be millions of children in the orphanages. Huh??? Long-time readers of this blog will recognize the holes in her analysis.

Russell laments the lack of verifiable information regarding the number of children in China’s orphanages, apparently unaware of or disregarding the statistics issued by the Chinese government in recent years. For example, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs, in cooperation with Britain’s “Save the Children Foundation” and the Beijing University, has revealed that there are 69,000 orphans living in China’s orphanages. Of those, more than 50% have special needs. Thus, at any given moment, around 35,000 healthy children are available for adoption, both domestically and internationally.

Additionally, a survey conducted by Research-China.Org in early 2005 of the orphanages involved in the international adoption program in China revealed that 93% of the directors indicated that there were no healthy children available for domestic adoption due to the demands of the international adoption program. These directors also indicated that the number of healthy infants being abandoned has been declining in recent years.

Just today, Amy Klatzkin of Families with Children from China (FCC) posted her recent conversation with an official of Hunan Province Civil Affairs. The official confirmed what our survey of directors showed: "that abandonments are way down and that most of the new arrivals at SWIs are now disabled." She then gives some personal observations confirming that assessment. But even Amy can't resist partaking of the "conspiracy bug" that Russell so freely embraces. Amy believes that China's officials "are greatly overstating the impact of domestic adoptions in order to mask the illegal increase in sex-selective abortions." Again, we must ask, is there any evidence to show that this is the case? In my rather frequent excursions into rural China, I see no evidence that ultra-sound technology enjoys widespread use in sex-selective abortions. In fact, my interviews with scores of new parents confirms that it is extremely difficult to determine the sex of an unborn child. Given no evidence other than our suppositions, are we to assume that millions of women annually are able to find out the sex of their unborn children?

Russell is motivated by a problem plaguing many adoptive families. Most of us adopted from China working under the assumption that China had hundreds of thousands of unwanted baby girls needing homes. It was this apparent need that motivated me in 1997 to adopt my oldest daughter. There were no hard statistics to refute that belief, and it became engrained in the Chinese adoption community. But as research begins to show that that situation is no longer valid, many adoptive families resist embracing the information that is now coming from China. Conspiracy theories abound: the Olympics, the paper-work process, etc., all designed to contradict the published statements of the Chinese government and the testimony of hundreds of orphanage directors.

Perhaps some families don't want to believe the "new reality" because the old reality was so legitimizing of the international adoption program, and the individual reasons for adopting by the family themselves. In other words, it is easier to discuss with our children our reasons for adopting them when there is a patent need (full orphanages), but it becomes harder when the evidence for that need is no longer there.

Given the Hague Agreements emphasis that children should remain in their birth countries whenever possible, China’s recent restrictions on international adoption make perfect sense. The reality in China isn’t that these new restrictions will result in more children remaining in orphanages, as Russell asserts, rather that families inside China will adopt more children.

The solution to China’s abandonment problem is not abolishing the one-child policy, a policy that has had remarkable results in decreasing China’s birth rate. Rather, the solution is to change the cultural preference for boys. This has already been largely accomplished among China’s younger generations, but pressure continues to be felt from the older generations, those now grandparents.

Infant abandonment in China is an unfortunate situation that is fortunately decreasing. China’s recent changes in adoption policy go a long way to insuring that the victims of abandonment find loving homes, with preference given to domestic families inside China.